Antec TriCool Red LED 80mm 3 speed fan

We have a Dell Dimension 8100 (desktop machine), which is notorious for its CPU fan. For whatever reason, Dell used a proprietary 3-pin motherboard connector for the fan. When the fan starts going out, it gets really loud, but the part is out of stock. Disconnecting the stock fan from the motherboard means that on every boot, you get a beep and have to hit "F1" to bypass the missing fan.

Antec to the rescue.

This fan (TriCool 92mm) ships with a 3-pin connector and a Y-adapter. The Y-Adapter allows you to get power from a large power-supply socket, like the kind a hard drive uses. The other branch of the adapter goes to a 3-pin connector with a white fan sense pin.

To use this fan to replace the Dell Dimension 8100 fan:

* Disconnect the existing CPU fan from the motherboard, noting which pin is connected to the white wire. This is the fan sense pin.

* Using pliers, carefully remove the plastic sheath on the motherboard fan pins.

* Using the Y-adapter, connect the Antec to a power supply socket.

* Using other branch of the cable, with the white wire to a 3-pin plug, connect ONLY the wired pin to the fan sense pin on the motherboard.

The Dell will then detect the new fan and bypass the warning message.

As a bonus, this fan moves more air on its high setting than the stock fan did.

My original case fan was incredibly loud. It doesn't pay to go too cheap on the case fans. I'm not a 'modder' and don't spend time making the computer case look pretty, but I wanted a fan that would run quiet and help contribute to the overall process of keeping the case cool. This fan seems to do both just fine for my needs. The blue light it emits is a nice gimmick too. The fan shipped to me quickly and without any troubles. I would recommend this fan.

It's hard not to love this product. We needed a hobby fan that we were going to use to exhaust air out the back of a cabinet that we sometimes heat food up in, to avoid the moisture that fogs your glasses when you are stirring the food. I wasn't sure how I was going to figure out which pins did what, but they are very clearly identifiable based on what they give you and how it is wired.

Out of the fan case itself, pops two cables. One cable has a switch that has H M L on it, for high, medium and low. This is the speed control.

The other cable has a three pin female connector, into which a 3 wire male plug containing three wires arrive already plugged in. A red and black wire for power, and a white wire for control. The red and black wires are already built into a 4 prong Molex connector (two fo the prongs are unconnected) that has both male and female on different sides, so that you can plug the male side of the Molex into a power supply connector, and then plug another device into the female side of the Molex. The white wire is terminated by another three wire connector, with two of the positions left unconnected.

If you have a motherboard that has the three wire connector, that provides both control and power, you can pull the male plug that has the three colored wires out of the end of the cable coupled to the fan (lift the tab on the side and then slide the plug out) and pop the plug at the end of the clear wires onto your motherboard and let the motherboard do the speed control for you. Try this arrangement first: if the fan spins when you turn it on, you're fine.

If you have a motherboard that has a three wire connector, but only the control is functional, leave the wires plugged into the three wire connector, plug the second three wire connector into your motherboard, and then plug the molex into your power supply. So if you unplugged the three colored wires, plug them back in after you make the connections I described above.

If you have no three wire plug for fan speed control at all, leave that wire unplugged, and just plug the molex into your power supply.

Finally, if you don't have a fan speed control plug or it doesn't work, use the speed control switch that comes with the fan to set it on the highest setting that doesn't bug you, preferably high.

Note that the speed control reduces whatever voltage you give the fan and that drops the speed of the fan. But the fan needs 5 volts minimum to spin. If your power supply isn't putting out all 12 volts, the speed control will drop the voltage down too far at the lowest setting, causing the fan to stop spinning. But that probably means the medium setting is about as low speed as you can get with the voltage you have available.

Finally, if you are using it as a hobby fan, not with a computer, like we are, connect any 5V-12V power wart that you have lying around (clip the ends of the power wart off and jam them into the connectors with the red and black power wires (the white is the control), or clip the red and black wires off the molex plug and twist one of the wires from the fan to one of the wires of the power wart, then repeat with the other wire from each device.

The fan will spin backwards if you connect them incorrectly, so reverse the wires or the fan orientation, as needed. If I had to guess, I'd assume the side with the round Antec sticker is the side the air comes out of.

We used 4 - #6 x 1.25" screws in our hobby application, as the fan is slightly under 1" thick, and we were screwing them into 1/4 inch masonite. #8 screws probably would have worked as well. If you are using them for a computer, you'll need 1" screws that fit the holes in your computer's case.

It's a great product and a great value. It would have been nice if the manufacturer told you all this stuff, but now armed with this information, you should find that this fan works in nearly any application, computer or otherwise. We're really happy with it.